A WEEK after the Federal Government gave top officials of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) marching order to deliver better service, those who are deemed to have defaulted have been fired.
In what looks like the first drastic step it had taken on the issue of poor power supply since its inauguration last May 29, the government yesterday dropped four chief executive officers (CEOs) of PHCN in charge of distribution.
The move, it was learnt, is to strengthen the capacity of distribution companies to serve Nigerians better.
Minister of Power, Prof. Bart Nnaji, who announced the removal of the firms' chiefs yesterday, named those affected as Justus Obilomo (Eko Distribution Company), Oladele Adeola (Ibadan), George Chiatula (Benin) and Kosiso Nwaokoro (Jos).
He named their replacements as Oladele Amoda (Eko Distribution Company), Bolaji Mofoluso Oyesiku (Ibadan), Dr. Effiong Umoren (Benin) and Mrs. Vera Ngozi Osuhor (Jos).
Nnaji had told the top level managers of the power generation, transmission and distribution companies at a meeting last Monday that those who fail to perform and consistently miss their service level targets would be replaced to underscore government's seriousness to realising its power sector reform.
The minister later met with the new CEOs and congratulated them on their appointments.
He said that government believes that they will live up to public expectation.
"Government needs to see actual performance from us both in terms of network operations and revenue collection; I trust you will justify the confidence that we have in you with your appointments," he said.
Nnaji told them that the government would hold them responsible for meeting the service level agreements already subsisting in their various companies, adding that their appointments were with immediate effect.
The government also took steps yesterday to reduce the current high level of importation of refined petroleum products. It set a national refining capacity of over one million barrels per day.
At the opening of the Society for Petroleum Engineers (SPE) yearly conference and exhibition in Abuja yesterday, Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Deziani Alison-Madueke, said "the nation's refining capacity would receive significant boost in the next three years, with the coming up of three new refineries and the Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of the traditional refineries, which is now being handled by the companies that first built them to ensure that the facilities actually give us the result that we desire in this country and take us to 95 per cent capacity utilisation in all our traditional refineries."
The current installed capacity of the nation's four refineries located in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna is 445,000bpd.
With a 24-month mandate to fix the old refineries, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has embarked on consultation to ensure that the TAM takes off next year, beginning with the Port Harcourt refinery.
The NNPC Group Managing Director, Mr. Austen Oniwon said: "We have given ourselves 24 months to raise the three refineries. We are starting with Port Harcourt refinery and we have engaged JDP of Japan, which is partnering with Tecnimont of Italy and they are now in talks, with the hope that by the third quarter of next year, they will move into Port Harcourt refinery and commence rehabilitation. It is not just the Turn Around Maintenance, it is the full rehabilitation of the refineries.
He stated that the refineries have no limited capacity, linking the past challenges to imbalance in one of the units. Oniwon noted that the needed expansion design has been done by the licensor of the unit, "so, there is not going to be a major change in configuration of the facility, the plant is still the same."
On the Greenfield refineries, he said the detailed feasibility study has been completed, "so our team will be going to United Kingdom (UK) to meet with the consultant to review the feasibility study. Thereafter, we will engage the financiers and the contractors to also examine the study and then we will be able to determine appropriately the type and the configuration of the Greenfield refineries."
Meanwhile, Alison-Madueke has expressed hope on the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill before the end of the year.
"We are monitoring the development in a very focused manner. We are now trying to tidy that alongside the National Assembly. We are hoping that when they return from the recess, it would be moved ahead speedily because the sooner we can get it, to be accommodated into law, hopefully, before the end of this year, the better for us all."
The Guardian
Nice move! But there should be proper monitoring of activities at PHCN. They can make Nigerian power system works and also mar it.